Reds 5, Dodgers 0: Tip Your Cap To Johnny Cueto

I don’t know. Not a whole lot to say about this one. Yes, Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp each had some issues with the home plate umpire — Kemp’s argument on this called strike three, which wasn’t a good call but which was probably too close to take, got him tossed in the second inning — didn’t help, but it also didn’t really have much of an impact. What can you say, other than that Johnny Cueto is a good pitcher having a great season, and that he was absolutely dominant tonight? I mean, 12 strikeouts without a walk in six innings, well, you can point some fingers at an offense that didn’t have Kemp or Hanley Ramirez, but you also just have to throw up your hands and say: damn, man. That was one hell of a well-pitched game.

Not that Hyun-jin Ryu was awful or anything, but he was going to have to be basically perfect to keep up with Cueto, and he certainly wasn’t that. Ryu especially dug himself a hole in the third inning, when after getting the first two outs, he walked both Billy Hamilton and Todd Frazier, so when Joey Votto doubled and Brandon Phillips singled, suddenly three runs were on the board. Ryu allowed another in the sixth on a Jay Bruce homer, and Paul Maholm another in a rough seventh — he faced seven hitters, of which two were walks, two were hits, and two were strikeouts (!) — but it didn’t matter. This was Cueto’s night. After taking the first two games of the series, it’s hard to be that crushed over it.